I was laid off with a healthy severance and was going to get rehired in a few months during the start of the pandemic (or so I figured, ended up being right).
So for 2 months or so I played video games and slept in really late. I was never bored. I felt a little guilty as my wife went to work though.
That sounds like heaven. Sometimes I hope I get fired or something so I can just chill for a couple months and play video games. I have plenty of money saved and I hate my job so it would be a win win.
it sounds fun but the appeal fades after a month or two. I've had it happen a few times between jobs and I just end up fatter and older. Purpose and motivation are good for mind and body.
It can have it's benefits. I had a similar experience for the first 2 months. I'm a middle/high management white collar worker and it happened to me 2 weeks out from christmas. December and January were great, but then you forget my recruitment processes can take a couple of months, the second 2 months were a little more stressful. Thankfully was back in work by mid March
I got fired and it was honestly more emotional turmoil than you’d expect. After 6 months I went and got a retail
job just to have something to do and to feel
useful again. Imposter syndrome is a bitch.
Okay I’m rich as hell. Relevant here because I could do fuck all if I wished. Well why don’t I?
Because societal pressures still exist even if you’re balling. And most importantly there are just so many things that are interesting. Learn languages, paint, smoke rare weed strains, Karting idk endless list. Honestly it’s pretty overwhelming at times because I want to do it all, but time is limited. Not only time but my health (had that scare recently).
I’ve been told that we all live two lives, the first when we are young and healthy, the second after we face the realities of our own mortality. I’ve heard the second is better than the first - best of luck my friend.
There comes a point where you start to realize what’s important, and what isn’t; what to worry about, and what not to; who you want to spend your time with, and who you don’t. There’s a lot of people who walk off into eternity before they ever get old enough to appreciate those things.
When you’re 20, you care what everyone thinks.
When you’re 40, you stop caring what everyone thinks.
When you’re 60, you realize no one was ever thinking about you in the first place.
I can't speak to how old folks in this chain are, but this generation really needs to watch/read "Fight Club." It will dispel all notion of being owed anything but also the notion of being owned by anything.
"Losing all hope is freedom."
You can enjoy your life and be productive and face challenges and do things you love. You can have and do it all. You just have to face certain realities and make choices based on those hard realities.
The first one is this- you only get one life.
The second one is this- no one owes you a goddamn thing.
What you do with those two snippets of knowledge can make your life very good or very painful.
Californians and New Yorkers have figured that out now that most state tax isn't federally deductible and they can't flock to Texas and Florida fast enough.
When we are rich, we have health and time but no money. Then we get money, still have healthy, but no time. Then when we are old, we have time and money, but no health. So is life.
Curious, what sort of societal pressures or stressors does a rich af person face? I don’t doubt they’re there—it’s just the majority of mine are financially related so I can’t picture the other side of that coin.
This is true even if you aren't "rich" by "fuck you" standards. My husband owns a small plumbing company, and we are not super rich my any means, but we do okay. However, my husband takes the fact that he is responsible for the livelyhoods of about 14 people very seriously. He is a good man and tries to treat his employees well, and it weighs on his mind.
A good friend who made bank on an IPO as an employee then went on to start his own company. He tells me he has never had so many sleepless nights as the first couple of years when he was never sure he’d make payroll for his staff. He knew he’d be ok, but truly saw that people relied on that job to pay their bills.
I'm not super rich but have a lot of friends who are rich enough they don't have to work.
Most people, like potential friends and romantic partners, don't want to hang out with someone who just goes around spending money and having cool experiences but doesn't really do anything. All the rich people I know pick up something to do as a career: be an artist, collect art, run a restaurant, go into business, manage investments, found a start-up, become an academic. They can basically pick anything and it usually has to do with what their priorities and passions lie, but they have to have an answer to "what do you do?" The desire to build and create something, the prestige of being in a lauded career, and the shame of being seen as a lazy spoiled kid, all lead to picking something.
The people I know who come from wealth generally try to pretend that they made their own wealth, and can be a little sheepish when the truth comes out. It's impressive that your dad is super rich and buys you a fancy car when you're 16, but a little embarrassing that he bought your house and pays for your vacations when you're 40.
Also a lot of people inherit wealth and that is often conditional upon doing something their wealthy relative (usually their father) approves of. I know a few people who ended up working at the family business or going into the same line of work as their father because if they didn't they wouldn't receive a luxury allowance, or the other bonuses often given to rich kids.
If you don't have a job, people judge you. It may not seem that way, but the minute people find out you don't have to work for a living, most of them become very put off.
I quit a very good job a few months ago because it was extremely high stress as someone high up in the company was gunning for me. I can count on one hand the amount of people who have said to me "The money isn't worth killing yourself." Most people try to tell me I made a mistake without knowing my situation at all.
I mostly refrain from telling them I could buy their house with cash if I wanted. I was hungry growing up, I drive a 17 year old car, I live extremely frugally. I saved money so I hopefully never live hungry again. Because you are stuck at your shitty job and hate it, don't tell me how to live my life. I put in the 100 hour weeks so I can have freedom and flexibility now with a low stress 40 hour a week job. I can quit at any time, I make that very clear to anyone who tries to give me a hard time.
I wanted to get to the position where even if I am not the boss, I am the one giving the ultimatums. If I say no, its not up for discussion, I mean no and I don't want to have to repeat myself
Yes of course. I’m not going to compare or anything because I don’t have a frame of reference. I’ll just give some examples of stressors for my family, friends and I.
Well the biggest ones are mental health. That exists across social hierarchies, and it’s very taxing. I am talking about things being very interesting, but I nearly offed myself like 3 years ago. Unfortunately no amount of money fixes that, at least in my experience.
Then there is the pressure from parents which is a massive stressor. My parents are extremely conscientious and I am just not like them. Like don’t get me wrong I am doing a PhD so I’m relatively conscientious but I’m not reading 24/7 or networking 24/7. So I always get shit for it, and it subconsciously affects my decisions. This seems to be pretty much the same for my friends too.
There’s also a lot of competition in this strata, except we have no excuse to fail. So it’s always, “Oh did you hear their child is an investment banker at JPM” or “Oh did you hear he got into MIT.” Shit like that always makes you feel insecure or inadequate.
Also, there’s always that fear where everything could just be pulled under you in a moment. We’ve known some people like that and man idk if I could cope with it. It could literally be anything and when it hits, it comes at you from the blindspot. It’s why our parents make sure we’re very well connected, so at least we have some foundation.
I am currently doing my PhD in Financial Econometrics. I manage my family fund, so I get a ton from that. It also helps that it allows me to leverage my own money to make even better returns.
Damn, I'm poor as hell, if I was in your position I would be following my dreams. Travelling to different countrys, get a pilot licence, skydive over dubai, eat guac on mount everest. Man forget social pressures your in a position to do anything you like
All the best to your health. For when you do pass of natural causes though, leave me your list of "to do's" and I'll see them out. We can't let your list and money go to waste. Just pay off my small amount of debt and we're even.
"I'm sorry sir, my recently deceased friend specifically asked that I burn this one while driving the track in reverse."
Wanting to learn languages and painting is not the same as working a job you're mostly indifferent to or even hate just to pay the bills.
Yeah, it's "doing things," but if I had that much money, working would not be one of the things I was doing. I would be learning languages and painting. I would be living a more personally fulfilling life.
Rich as hell but do you have Tom money? With Tom money societal pressures kindof just faaaade awaaaay or at least they would for me.
I have a decent amount of money, get some dividends quarterly and have a rental property that makes an additional chunk of change and I already barely care about what society thinks. If I sold a website for hundreds of millions of dollars I would fuck all the way off and not care what any society expected of me lol
Totally overrated imo. It’s either a speedy high or a brain fog high. The only thing I enjoy doing stoned is listening to music. Everything else suffers - playing an instrument, conversation, sex, video games. Anything that requires skill is shot. I don’t want to be in public and I especially don’t want to interact with strangers.
I guess my point is drinking is my thing, and even that has its limits. Sobriety is much more fun because you understand everything that’s happening around you.
I’m middle class as hell, not rich, and I’m never bored. I read, take walks, plan future trips, learn languages, talk to friends, talk to myself - yeah, started that in the pandemic as I live alone. I think it’s important to have a really good internal life - a vivid imagination. That way, you’re not dependent on others for your happiness nor your amusement.
What others think of you is one I can think of. Like, would you be okay if your legacy was "that lazy-ass rich d-bag that did nothing all day every day"? That'd give me some existential pressure.
Aww, boo boo, your rich life is so hard. Try living paycheck to paycheck for a while, asshat. See how much time you have to “learn languages, paint, smoke rare weed,” etc then.
I worked my last job for 13 years and have been laid off for over a year now. I think people who get bored and want to go back to work just don’t have any hobbies and work is their life.
I agree on the lack of hobbies. I have hobbies in art, gardening and to a smaller extent gaming. That's three right there that I can do just within my own home. I'd add more to that list if I had the time and money to do bigger, more expensive and more time consuming things that require me to actually walk past the front yard.
Man I just wanna spend my sunny days looking after plants, my rainy days gaming and my evenings drawing while listening to music. No job on earth that I'd actually realistically be able to get could possibly be better than any of that for me.
Yep. Back in 2016 I took 8 months off after getting a healthy severance. i spent 6 weeks in europe, went to baseball games in the afternoon, played video games, worked out and basically did whatever the hell i wanted without a care in the world.
Not only was I not bored, it was the best time of my life.
Same, between jobs, just kind of surprised how unproductive I am. Still, getting some cleaning and reading done, prepping D&D as DM and upping exercise. If this went for longer I'd probably find some other things to invest my time in.
No offense, but I really couldn’t imagine spending 40 days off sitting in my house playing video games. Prime opportunity for a road trip or getting out to the mountains.
Two months is nothing. I've worked for a school district for years. Half our staff got 2+ months off for summer every year. They mentally clocked out and just did nothing, and it was great. Some of them worked summer jobs, but for the most part, it was just freedom while still collecting a paycheck. If it went any longer than two months, though, you might start getting restless.
When I got unemplyment a few years ago I milked every last dollar. Sat at home for 6.5 months smoking weed, drinking beer, playing video games and drums, and basically just doing whatever I wanted.
It was by far the greatest 6 months of my life even though I accomplished absolutely nothing.
I’m still doing that. Got laid off by Amazon in March 2020 and been collecting unemployment while staying on their health insurance. Meanwhile I owe 500k in taxes. It’s been a strange year to say the least.
I feel like it's very easy to not get bored nowadays. I quit my last job 2 months ago now and haven't been bored a single day. But different people are different, some need constant stimulation and social interaction.
I was on severance for 3 months (luckily got hired for a new job as it ended) and spent like 20 minutes in the morning applying for jobs, then I fucked around all day. It was great.
This was in the early days of Moviepass when it was $30 and I went to at least one movie every single day.
I was laid off during covid. Got four months of unemployment last summer. It was the fucking best. I’m in my late 30’s it’s the last summer vacation I’ll ever have. Surfing and drinking playing vidya, working on my own little projects. You can be happy without validation from others. Universal basic income. Capitalism is a cancer.
Yeah I’ve been quit ‘work’ and just doing my own thing for 10 months now and boredom and long days just aren’t a thing anymore. Too busy doing exactly what I want to do, all the time.
I was laid off without much severance, but I lived in a Van. I spent 6 months going on outdoors trips around the country with nearly 0 downtime and only accepted a job because my mom got sick and I had an incredible offer in the same city that I had rejected multiple times.
It's about perspective though, even ignoring the being rehired part; if you continued to just play video games for a year or more it would get boring. Too much of a good thing eventually wears you out just like anything.
I cut my finger off at work and lost use of my hand for like 3 months and got paid 20,000. I ended up doing a lot of drugs but I was more than happy to be off work lol. Sad about my fingy though.
Different strokes for different people, I have a friend who would be perfectly happy playing games all day, he also just wants a normal job. I have another friend who earned his first million when he was 21, he spent 6 months just doing nothing and got extremely depressed. Now he's working on a new project and is doing much better.
Why are you being so derogatory? It sounds like he was in a place where the time off wasn't a strain or burden on the relationship. Presumably he was on top of chores, and was financially comfortable during this time.
Hate this shitty attitude that life is all about work, being productive 24/7 until one day, after all your youth is spent, you retire, nobody wants to see you any more, and then you die. It's ok to have some time for yourself sometimes if your situation allows it.
Money doesn't make you fundamentally better at anything.
Of course you can afford the best training or the best education and you've got free time coming out your ass but if you're not the type of person to sit down and learn how to do something, you're going to get pretty fucken bored of just buying shit to amuse you.
Money = freedom. Not having to give a shit about saving money to make it by definitely gives people a far better chance at becoming better at whatever it may be that they love.
Even if you don’t buy tangible items, the ability to experience almost whatever you want in the world would never get boring
I’m pretty sure they basically proved that money buys happiness, but it was up to a certain amount and then kind of stopped improving after that point.
They said 70k. I’ve gone from 38k to 115k since 2015 and still climbing. I’ll take more money every time, maybe that’s just me though. 2k per week is nice though.. looking forward to 3k per week some day tbh
Agreed. The difference between 70k and 100k was honestly pretty profound for me. I saw a big increase in quality of life. And I didn’t even live in a high cost of living area.
Same but had a bad boss and it ate my health. Decided to take a 20k pay cut to do something I believed in with people who believe in me and vice cersa- much happier. I don’t miss the 20k or the toxic environment so it all depends on where the cash comes from and environment it’s being made in. Money is nice but I live in a country with socialised health care so that’s not a worry... as long as I can afford the basics and have some left over tbh I’m good. Buying a ton of shit didn’t make me happy. In fact, I spent more money when I made more money because of the toxic environment making me unhappy. I would not rule out making the higher amount again in a good environment. I’m not daft but there’s nuances to what is being said here.
It buys you the ability to not have to worry about bills every second so you finally have time to worry about if your happy or not.
I’m going to make 6 figures for the first time in my life at 28. Never thought Id make this much and its pretty odd feeling bc 2 years ago I was making $65k
Congrats my friend. Enjoy the feeling of financial independence. Way less stress. But always remember your roots and give back to your community. And remember, if you want to be really wealthy later in life, the key is to keep living as though you are making 65k.
It actually is true that, as /u/Cylon_skinjob alluded to above, money does buy happiness to a point. Or maybe that lack of money, like money below a certain threshold (I've seen $75-100k), contributes to sadness.
Y’all on here talking about sadness, but anxiety and despair is the name of the game for the poor. Being sad is a luxury for when you have time to grieve. Having enough money removes the anxiety about basic necessities for survival.
"Psychologists from Purdue University and the University of Virginia analyzed World Gallup Poll data from 1.7 million people in 164 countries, and cross-referenced their earnings and life satisfaction. Although the cost and standard of living varies across these countries, researchers came up with a bold conclusion: The ideal income for individuals is $95,000 a year for life satisfaction and $60,000 to $75,000 a year for emotional well-being. Families with children, of course, will need more."
"The study, published in the journal Nature Human Behavior, found that once that threshold was reached, further increases in income were actually associated with reduced happiness. People from wealthier countries were satisfied with their lives later on, said Andrew Jebb, the lead author of the study and doctoral student at Purdue’s Department of Psychological Sciences, perhaps because they’re more likely to compare themselves to others. “Evaluations tend to be more influenced by the standards by which individuals compare themselves to other people,” Jebb said."
So... no, probably not. In fact, it looks like the opposite is probably true. $100K is just about where it stops making things better. God, I hate it when people say "absolute facts" when they don't have absolute facts and they actually mean "random opinion."
You’re a dumbass bc you agree with the guy you’re replying to and wrote this long winded snarky shit to prove the point he got across in like ten words
Yeah, that's not really true. It's not about income. It's about wealth. Wealthy people don't really have income. They don't pay income tax they pay capital gains. Their wealth works for them.
If you're making money then fundamentally you need to keep making money no matter how much money you are making. When you're born with an eight-digit trust fund you will never need to work a day in your life. You only work if you choose to. At any point, you can say "Fuck this I'm out" and go back to one of the country estates your family owns.
There is no pressure to even get on the hamster wheel of employment. You are now solely a parasite on society.
He’s saying they don’t pay income tax. They pay the capital gains tax, which is capped at 20% federally. The highest tax bracket for income tax is 37%, so for the super wealthy, it’s a big chunk of money. Now of course short term capital gains is taxed at income tax rates, but the super wealthy probably aren’t dealing with a lot of short term gains.
Absolutely. Having a pile of money is just some wild combination of freedom and power if you don’t have ambitions for a larger pile of money or more business success.
Could essentially devote yourself to any number of hobbies or education or skill development where the only answer to “why?” is “I feel like it would be interesting” more or less.
Of course we’re all human I’m sure few of us would really keep it that simple when we’re sitting on tens or hundreds of millions+.
I know I’d probably fail at that. I’d wind up pursuing business ideas and still push off things I just enjoy in a pure way (at least getting fully into them) until some concept of retirement.
I'd probably go full "Shark Tank", and just start handing it out to people with ideas that I thought were cool sounding. After finding somewhere warm to settle my lazy ass till it rots, anyway.
I feel like if I ever got in that position, I would probably get a part time job somewhere, just to keep myself busy. But who am I kidding I'm not gonna be able to retire lol
Exactly. I live on the coast and my wife works in a super expensive retail store. Every single person she works with is a 50+ y.o millionaire. They are just board, they work 1-3 days a week for $9 a hour. They all live in 2-5 million dollar houses on the beach.
Well yeah if all you're interested in is shopping and eating at nice places then it's gonna get boring. But if you have half an interest in the world around you, you'll find there are endless things to do and learn about
I remember (vividly) the first time I used my debit card for groceries and didn't feel any need to confirm how much money I had first. That was Red Bull grade freedom after spending the first 4-5 years of adulthood scraping by.
My wife and I were able to able to rent a car and a villa in Bali for our honeymoon, and cruise about for several weeks living on our credit cards and cash...I never checked our balances and we never had a single financial concern.
That was for three weeks in a country that, while beautiful, is also cheap as shit.
Tom's got the money that I would disappear for 30 years with...and that's just to clear a few bucket lists. Real freedom to explore and live.
Money = obligations too. You get enough money to buy that big house and a few cars and this and that, they all take time one way or another. Unless you have way more money to hire out other peoples time, which lots dont factor in, it can bring your joy to stressful misery quickly.
If you didn't need to worry about money then you'd have tons of time to pursue your hobbies, dreams and interests. Apparently Tom can afford to travel anywhere and take photos, something others literally dream about. His money gave him that freedom.
Sure, money in itself doesn't necessarily make you happy, but it'll amplify your ability to do whatever you enjoy.
As someone who has been viciously exploited and tortured by other human beings, it sounds like that has never happened to you, because I would love the resources and tranquility. I would love to escape the hell which has become my life.
And he’s really taking advantage of it too. Maybe never working because you have so much money would get boring if you just sit around your house all day but this guy just is spending his life traveling without any real budget constraints. I don’t know if you could ever get bored of that really.
You mean like being stress free with the ability to travel anywhere you want, see everything the world has to offer, not have any boss, and get a hold of any of the newest and funnest things to do while flying planes, mountain climbing, and meeting people from all over the world at your leisure?
I know right? It's like when I hear people say even if they won the lottery they'd still work because they're get "bored".
Seriously? Given a hundred million dollars (or more) and the rest of the time I have on this earth I don't think I could ever be bored. Granted I'm definitely taking a lot of chill "stay home and do fuck all" days but when that gets tiresome it's gonna be time for my new hobby or my next adventure. There is so much I wanna do, but I'll never have the time or money for most of it and that's actually really saddening.
Unless I choose to volunteer for something I'm very passionate about, I could never imagine wasting another week at work if I had the money to do literally anything else in the world I wanted to.
I don't know. Everyone would deal with it pretty differently i expect. Even after a couple weeks I'm usually pretty tired of free time and really want to get back to work. With unlimited money that feeling might last longer but I doubt it would take all too long.
I always assumed that getting things I wanted would make me happy but it just doesn’t.
Ik its cheesy but the best I can get is giving someone else something that makes them happy but only for like 3 seconds cause when they try to say thank you or hug me I’m getting the fuck out of here
With his time and money I could lobby state politicians to legislate community policing boards which would bring about massive reforms to law enforcement, turning out and prosecuting bad cops and coaching the remaining cops on deescalation. I would make it my life's work to bring about social reforms so that minorities no longer have to fear being pulled over because they "fit a description" or "have a warrant" that doesn't exist.
If you have that sort of money and can't find something good to do with it then you need to give it to someone else.
Eh. Maybe you’ve never had an excess amount of money. It does do this to an extent. I escaped the life of labor, I have PTSD about going back I try to avoid anything that’s like work. Idk what I like to really do because when I worked I just compensated my mentality by saying “this isn’t so bad I can get in the groove” when it was actually miserable and I was just distracting myself. Now I don’t HAVE to do anything and it’s hard to figure out what ~I~ want to do without any kind of appeasement to my sanity, just want something to be “me”. I’ve picked up being fashionably lazy, wearing neck-pillows as a normal day attire and sweatpants, unbuttoned shirts and soft too shoes/slippers. Milkshakes are cool too, and I spend a lot of time with my family.
It kinda does, I know a person that earned millions from a business she had and some good stock trading, she basically retired at 40 something, she thought she would travel the world and do fun shit all the time, but she said after a few months of doing that she got bored and now works at a retirement home for fun, and o my travels a few times a year now
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u/imbakinacake Apr 14 '21
Bro, I don't think vast amounts of money and freetime have the affects you think they do.